December 8 in Paris, Act IV of the yellow vests protests, provided further evidence of a movement moving decisively to the left with the presence of a huge anti-capitalist bloc, led by leading campaigners against police violence, The Adama Committee for Justice and Truth, and including railworkers, striking postal workers and other rank and file trade unionists, students, migrant workers groups, important collectives like The Rosa Parks Collective, sex workers and LGBT groups amongst many others. The mood in France has completely changed since the horrific arrest of all 151 students in the sixth form of a school in a banlieue of Paris last Thursday, after police put them all in stress positions (you can see the footage in our video above). Now the organised workers are entering the fray. The CGT have called a day of action for pay rises this Friday; rank and file railworkers who led a series of strikes against the Macron government earlier this year, are walking out on strike that day and are calling on other workers to join them as a first step towards building a general strike. Meanwhile the student movement has exploded, with blockades at hundreds of schools and universities across the country, huge demonstrations in the past couple of days and mass assemblies, like the one below in Nanterre University in Paris where 3,000 attended on Monday:

Apart from outrage at the severe repression from the stage, the response to Macron’s concessions to the movement has broadly been: Too little, too late. A 50p an hour rise in the minimum wage is not being paid for by employers, but by taxes, and was due to go ahead anyway; concessions on pensions are cosmetic; and the same day the government decided to go ahead with more tax cuts for the rich. In a movement where a number of different demands are converging, the consensus is clear; nothing less than a significant redistribution of wealth will do.

]]>UKIP & Tommy fans outnumbered by antifascists in Londonhttps://reelnews.co.uk/2018/12/12/all-reelnews-campaigns/anti-fascism/ukip-tommy-fans-outnumbered-by-antifascists-in-london/
Wed, 12 Dec 2018 14:04:44 +0000https://reelnews.co.uk/?p=4212[...]]]>On Sunday December 9th the increasingly fascist UKIP joined forces with EDL founder ‘Tommy Robinson’ for a march entitled Brexit Betrayal, in a clear attempt at capitalising on the embarrassing chaos surrounding withdrawal from the European Union. Yet again they were outnumbered by a counter protest.

Antifascists from a range of groups met outside the BBC for a march into central London to oppose the racists. The day before, using their powers under the 1986 Public Order Act, the police imposed pretty draconian restrictions on the march and flooded it with hundreds of officers in riot gear from the word go. A sizeable crew of stewards at the front kept some breathing space between the plods and the marchers who were lively and diverse drawn from the different strands of the left and a number of trade unions. Their spirits were lifted yet further by at least one sound system playing some banging antifascist songs.

As the march came down Piccadilly a pathetic crew of around 30 individuals from the racist Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA) made a half-hearted attempt at blocking the route. When the police arrived they whined that: “this is what Antifa did to us in October”. Unlike the crew of 1,500 militant antifascists who blocked the route of the DFLA march two months previously this lot had little stomach for a confrontation, putting more energy into filming themselves on their mobiles than anything else. Most of them retreated into the side streets as more cops arrived. A few stayed behind to politely wave a union jack flag from the pavement with the protection of around 40 police in riot gear. No attempt was made by the cops to detain them or take their details.

The drama continued as the front of the march neared its destination at the Trafalgar square end of Whitehall and a crew of fascists from the so-called ‘Chelsea Head Hunters’ appeared.

Their heads were certainly on a mission to hunt the pavement as they attempted to confront the demo and quickly found themselves surrounded by people who were not in the mood for a polite debate. Two of them were decked and another tried to slip away claiming that he was nothing to do with them. So much for the ‘master race’? As usual it was the Police to the rescue as a riot squad was sent in to extract them. Unsure of what to do next, the cops bundled them into a souvenir shop where they resorted to the usual heroic Nazi tactic of seig-heiling at the protest from behind the safety of Police lines. They were eventually escorted out by more riot cops, protecting them from a very hostile crowd. Reel News understands that things got even worse for them after their human shields in blue had left them nearby.

Meanwhile, further back, a block of militant antifascists had taken a sharp left into Trafalgar square near the National Gallery to confront a group of DFLA who had been spotted earlier in the day. One of the ‘football lads’ ended up kissing the tarmac but a massively over the top response by riot cops allowed the rest to escape. Antifacists were hit with telescopic batons and several failed attempts were made at confiscating their banners. Good organization kept the arrest count down to just one and they later joined the rest of the protest in Whitehall with their sound system.

Growing up on an estate, I am rarely shocked by police violence or abuse of power.

But I couldn't believe how violent they were today against anti-racist protesters at #TommyRobinson march in central London!

There is little doubt that the Met Police decided to waste vast amounts of public money protecting the racists who were outnumbered and made to march miles apart from the anti fascists. As always the treatment of the far right at the hands of the cops was gentle by comparison to what everyone else endured.

On the other side of the thick blue line, our team caught up with the official UKIP/Robinson ‘Brexit Betrayal’ march. Unsurprisingly it was crawling with very many fascist groups and racist individuals.

There were several well known faces from the neo Nazi National Front and also the increasingly irrelevant BNP, many of whom appear to have migrated en masse to Anne Maria Waters rabidly islamophobic ‘For Britain’ party. A project which seems pretty doomed now that UKIP is sharing a platform with the founder of the EDL. Also in attendance were the Nazi hipsters of Generation Identity and several well known faces from the lunatic fringe of the conspiracy theory scene. One moron was even carrying a home-made placard claiming that the murder of MP Jo Cox by a Nazi in 2016 was a ‘false flag’.

For an event that had been billed as a ‘family day’ there were very few families in attendance and women were certainly a rare minority on the march. It was also exclusively white and pretty flat affair after the droning bag pipes had finally run out of air. Reaching Whitehall the crowd of between 3 & 5,000 waited for the speeches. The numbers were considerably less than both the organisers and Police had been expecting.

First speaker was UKIP leader Gerard Batten who is clearly still dining out on the dubious achievement of saving the party from financial ruin earlier this year. He is clearly a competent organizer and is consolidating his power now that several UKIP MEPs have jumped ship in disgust at the company he keeps. Even the rightwing tabloids wasted no time in condemning a photo he tweeted of a recent planning meeting, which included a convicted kidnapper along with other less than respectable elements.

His address started with an uninteresting recap of how Brexit happened and how he thinks the establishment is trying to stop it. He then went on to say how he intended to force Parliament to repeal legislation from 1972 to allow a hard Brexit. Exactly how a party that has never had a single MP elected in a general election could achieve this he didn’t explain. By the time he had finished describing his detail-free economic & social plans following withdrawal most of the crowd were talking amongst themselves. He then finished by pleading with the assembled crowd to join UKIP and help rebuild its electoral threat. Something that they will have to do from scratch now that Farage has left, taking his considerable charisma and Question Time season ticket with him.

Next came the pint-sized, preening popinjay known as both ‘Robinson’ and ‘Yaxley Lennon’. While ‘Tommeh’ may be well practiced at opening his enormous gob to spout evidence free racism at football lads, he had clearly been told to tone it down and was incredibly dull as a result. He started by thanking his gang for keeping the march peaceful, which is actually an achievement given their past record. He then went on to deliver a fawning shower of praise to UKIP leader Gerard Batten before spewing a boring and content-free appraisal of UKIP which ended with him begging his followers to join for thirty quid a year. Something he is still banned from doing by UKIP’s NEC thanks to his previous membership of the fascist BNP. He looked very out of his depth robotically reading his prepared speech and reinforcing the assumption that he is very much a one trick pony.

It is clear that ‘Robinson’ brought the numbers to the rally but whether his gang of mainly middle aged football firm has-beens will continue attending tedious A to B marches, where they are expected to behave themselves, remains to be seen. If he is allowed to join UKIP he will no doubt bring a fair few followers. But they are unlikely to be interested in the monotonous day-to-day work that keeps political parties going. They are even less likely to fill the financial void that has been left by the rightwing Tories whom returned to their spiritual home after the referendum. The big financiers like Aaron Banks appear more likely to fund the rival party that Farage is threatening to launch.

It will certainly benefit UKIP if the government kicks Brexit into the long grass as expected. But whether the party keeps lurching to the far right, which will not help at the ballot box, or tries to regain its crown as a retirement home for elderly racists remains to be seen. Either way Batten has a hell of a task ahead of him, and Robinson’s history of involvement with every political group that he has so far allied himself to has consistently proved that he is more likely to be a hindrance than a help.

This year Remembrance Sunday marked exactly 100 years since the end of the First World war which saw over seven hundred thousand British soldiers die in a pointless conflict between rival imperial powers. Veterans for Peace UK (VFPUK) marked the event by inviting several representatives of like minded groups from around the world to join their annual gathering at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. In total 11 countries were represented.

VFP UK is a democratic ex services organisation who, as a result of their experiences in the armed forces believe that war is not the solution to the problems we face in the twenty first century. As with previous years they refused to participate in the official Remembrance ceremony which is heavily criticised for being drenched in PR for both the military and the establishment. However they do assert their right to march to the cenotaph and remember their fallen comrades along with all the victims of war, both current and in the past. World War Two veteran Jim Radford sang 1916 by Motorhead which remains one of the greatest and least well known anti war songs ever written. There was also poetry and the Last Post along with the laying of a wreath of white poppies bearing the words ‘NEVER AGAIN’by a German veteran.

Meanwhile across the pond Iraq Veterans Against War (recently renamed: About Face: Veterans against the war) were blockading the National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia in protest to George W Bush being presented with Liberty Medal. They find it obscene that such a person could be honoured for his work for veterans when so many Americans died in a war started by Bush on the back of a lie. There was a stand off as they refused to move from the main entrance to the building and one veteran even managed to disrupt the ceremony itself.

This year the corporate media went into overdrive trying to exploit Remembrance day to score political points. Papers like the Daily Mail & The Sun seemed to think that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wearing a raincoat in heavy rain was more newsworthy than the ongoing scandal of homeless veterans freezing on our streets. This is sadly nothing new. Twice before Corbyn has been smeared with lies on Remembrance day by news outlets who have no qualms about pulling the whole occasion into the gutter to please their tax avoiding proprietors.

An estimated 13,000 former service men & women are homeless and extremely rich organisations like the British Legion are coming under fire for not doing more to help them. It is against this backdrop that VFPUK continues to grow and provide a place for veterans to make their feelings known about war and its consequences.

Film length: 5:49 Huge demonstration in Bideford, North Devon this weekend, to stop the only merchant shipyard in the country from closing. All 200 workers are facing redundancy a few days before Christmas, and the knock-on effect for the local economy will be huge. And this shows the lunacy of modern capitalism – the Government urgently needs non-military ships built for the Royal Navy, but instead of giving the work to the highly skilled workforce at Appledore shipyard and keeping the shipyard open, they’re putting it internationally to competitive tender to get the lowest price.

On top of that, the Tories know they need to take drastic steps to move to renewable energy to stop catastrophic climate change – so why aren’t they immediately giving Appledore a contract to build all the offshore wind turbines and other infrastructure we’re going to desperately need, and instead pushing ahead with a dangerous fracking operation that is already causing tremors and will push up our carbon emissions?

This is also one of the few places left with a proper apprenticeship scheme, training up the highly skilled workers of the future – but the Tories and engineering multinational Babcock International want to just chuck all this in the bin in their race to the bottom.
This is a major dispute kicking off with national importance – get behind the Appledore workers and demand the shipyard stays open. You can start by signing the petition at https://www.change.org/p/save-appledore-shipyard.

Film length: 8 min 45 sec 16 months on from the Grenfell fire – and STILL 438 tower blocks in Britain are covered by the same dangerous cladding as Grenfell was, plus other social housing and numerous private homes. Fuel Poverty Action demand change in this demonstration where a number of residents’ stories are heard. To get involved in the campaign, go to Fuel Poverty Action’s website.

3 minute version below:

]]>THEY DID NOT PASS! A bad day for the DFLA.https://reelnews.co.uk/2018/10/14/all-reelnews-campaigns/anti-fascism/they-did-not-pass-a-bad-day-for-the-dfla/
Sun, 14 Oct 2018 15:08:42 +0000https://reelnews.co.uk/?p=4127[...]]]>The increasingly fascist Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA) saw its numbers massively dwindle on Saturday Oct 13th in central London. While also being seriously outnumbered by anti fascists for the first time.

Generous estimates are saying that what is left of the DFLA mobilised between 1,500 & 1,800 mainly white, middle-aged hooligan has-beens. Considerably less than a third of their previous turnouts, which were down from other DFLA & FLA events since their inception after the low-tech London Bridge terror attacks by supporters of ISIL. The expensive wreaths paid for by hooligan firms from every premiership team on previous marches were reduced to just 3 extremely cheap & nasty arrangements from what must have been the florist’s answer to Poundland. The rightwing veterans groups marching in their blazers & with medals on display were nowhere to be seen. The ‘silent march’ was more a shuffle and its participants looking extremely bored throughout.

Eventually after some considerable delays (more about that later) they reached their rally at Whitehall. Much of their funding appears to have gone as the stage, giant screens and PA system that was seen at previous rallies was replaced by a trailer with a speaker system, that failed half way through, to add to their woes. Not that most of them would have noticed as the majority of the racists retired straight to the pubs upon arrival. Leaving just a few hundred to talk over insomnia curing speeches from a far smaller range of groups than before.

Meanwhile in Westminster up to 2,000 Trade Unionists & anti fascists marched from Old Palace Yard to Whitehall in an inclusive protest to hear a range of speakers from a different community groups & unions.

Although not a confrontational mobilization appropriate measures were taken to ensure the safety of participants. Previously DFLA supporters & assorted fascists had showed up for trouble at this location. For this occasion robust stewarding was provided by: UAF, RMT, FBU, other unions and some experienced anti fascists from back in the day. This time attempts at having a go by known racist football lads from Leicester, Tottenham & Millwall were pretty half hearted. Had they actually bothered to push their way through what were flimsy police lines, it would have gone very badly for them.

Fantastic display of resistance today against the racist DFLA along with huge anti-fascists protests in BerlinNEXT SAT: Conference: How do we defeat the rise of fascism & racism? Book now – tickets selling fast! https://t.co/VBWsq2UNhphttps://t.co/eHP5uIzmv7

Two miles north at Portland place 1,500 militant antifascists were gathering for a unity march supported by the Anti Fascist Network, Plan C and others. There was no prior arrangement with the Police and feminists, organized over many weeks, by Women’s Strike and others, led the march.

The procession, which contained a couple of sound systems, proceeded at exactly the right pace to ensure that it that it blocked the route of the advancing DFLA who were being closely monitored by spotters. Faced with a determined and disciplined group blocking the official route of the fascists journey to Whitehall. The police opted to reroute the racists instead of trying to move the opposition who by now were chanting a deafening chorus of ‘No Pasaran!’ at them.

Unlike the antifascists the DFLA were pretty lightly policed and sizable group managed to break through a weak blue line with pretty much a clear space between them and their enemies. For weeks prior to this event they had been boasting about how ANTIFA were going to be “smashed off the streets”. But after seeing the size of the opposition they seemed to have second thoughts and allowed the cops plenty of time, to push them back, to their new route.

Today's anti-fascist unity demo, led by a militant feminist bloc, outnumbered and blocked the DFLA march, forcing the police to delay, kettle and reroute them.

The UNITY protest continued to block Haymarket until the DFLA had been chaperoned by their state protectors back into Whitehall. Job done, they proceeded into Trafalgar Square where small groups of outnumbered and humiliated fascists attempted to heckle them with childish abuse and ‘seig heils’ from behind the safety of police lines.

The site of a protest led by young women was clearly too much for some of them whom unsurprisingly started shouting misogynistic abuse including rape threats. This was hardly in keeping with the ‘Justice For Women & Children’ banner that they had been marching behind earlier. But it is not like anyone is convinced by their supposed opposition to grooming gangs. Their rhetoric about cases like Rotherham & Telford is just a cover for their racism. Made all the more obvious by their deafening silence over white rapists & paedophiles including the very well documented cases within their own ranks.

The march eventually headed into the strand and then across Waterloo Bridge to disperse south of the river on their own terms. There were no arrests or injuries to anti fascists recorded. At least one attempt by police at making an arrest was thwarted by the discipline of the marchers.

Another welcome addition to the struggle against the resurgent far right is the recent emergence of Football Lads & Lasses Against Fascism. For the past few months they have steadily built an online forum for football fans who are disgusted by the idea of fascists setting any kind of agenda at clubs. Stickers that have been produced have been well received and snapped up by fans in their thousands, many designing their own incorporating the logos of their individual teams. They leafletted several clubs in the run up to Saturday and on the day they organised around 200 anti fascist casuals who cooperated with the other two protests but organised separately and scored a few hits against the fash (see report number 12 below). Their cat & mouse tactics certainly proved to be a headache for the police. It was an impressive showing for their first organised outing and they have the potential to grow and provide a space for fans to oppose the leeches who try to politicise the game for the benefit of class enemies. More about them here: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

To summarise Saturday was an important step forward for all who oppose the politics of hate and division. The mobilisations in London catered for anti fascists of all tastes and persuasions. The DFLA have been quick to start blaming each other for how badly the day went for them and infighting among a splintering far right is always a welcome sight. However there is little room for complacency. They will shortly be regrouping to support fascist poster boy Tommy Robinson at the Old Bailey on October 23rd. Counter protests are being organised against them. Watch this space.

The latest damning IPCC report published this week states that we have just twelve years to stop runaway climate change by moving the global economy away from fossil fuels – and many scientists are calling this a conservative estimate.

If we don’t control that transition as workers and communities it will be imposed on us. We only have to look at the aftermath of the miners strike to see what happens without a just transition – workers and communities get thrown on the scrapheap. Alternatively, with a just transition, we could be creating a million extra jobs in this country, (an estimated 120 million jobs worldwide), ending austerity and transforming communities. Click here for more on the Million Climate Jobs Campaign

Two videoactivists from the London based Reel News collective went to North America this year to look at grassroots organising on the ground with a climate change denying president in charge. What we found were visionary struggles starting to implement a just transition through collective action which, if combined with our experience as a movement here, could lead to climate change being seen not as a threat, but as an opportunity to create the communities we want to live in and at the same time put right historic injustices and inequalities.

In the 14 states we visited, it was very noticeable that combating climate change is a movement led by working class communities in the USA – and one that is completely integrated with the struggle against austerity, racism, mass incarceration, rights for migrant workers and gentrification. For example, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans – an early extreme weather event directly linked to climate change – was used to force black working class communities out of the city and gentrify it, while accelerating the privatization of schools. People quickly began to realize that you can’t fight one aspect of neoliberal capitalism without dealing with all the others.

Richmond, California is a prime example of a working class community we can learn a lot from. A city of 110,000 with over three quarters of the population being Black, Latino or Asian, Richmond has been dominated by the oil giant Chevron for the past 100 years. Living next to the oil refineries, there are serious health problems – particularly cancer. Yet only 5% of the refinery jobs go to local people.

Chevron had historically bought off local politicians to look after their interests – so despite there being very strong social movements in the city, protests often had limited effects. So in 2014 the people decided to stand their own community candidates. Despite Chevron spending an astonishing three million dollars on a local election, every one of their candidates lost.

Since then not only has Chevron’s power been curbed but they have been forced to build the largest publically owned solar farm in the Bay area on their land – and in addition Richmond now has the highest minimum wage in the state, rent controls have been introduced to fight gentrification and police violence has been reduced through a new community policing model.

All these were demands coming out of the social movements, who have now formed the “Our Power” coalition – a movement of movements building what they call a just transition framework where there’s a planned transition to renewable energy, led by the people who live there so that they benefit from the transition. So they have movements opposing mass incarceration – which they see as part of the extractive economy, extracting people and skills out of their community who could be doing useful work – working alongside housing movements, food growing networks, bike coops reclaiming space in the city and many more, to re-imagine the community they ideally want to live in and how they want to organize it. Increasingly, this process is being managed through local assemblies starting from people’s immediate needs and priorities.

Perhaps the most visionary project we found was Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi – an 80% black, overwhelmingly working-class and overwhelmingly impoverished city in the heart of a state run by the Tea Party, or as local people describe them, “Trump on steroids”.

Jackson was one of the key centres of the civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s as people bravely fought back against the violent reality of Jim Crow laws – and now it’s inspiring movements throughout the USA again with a revolutionary just transition model, with people’s assemblies at the centre of it. In a city with over 50% permanent employment, Jackson is income poor but resources rich in terms of the skills that people have. So they’ve started building what they call a solidarity economy, based on a network of workers cooperatives exchanging skills and resources with each other and reducing the need for money. The latest cooperative getting underway is a 3D printing and fabrication coop, where local people can come in and get trained up in the new technology, and then use it to build what they need – from shoes to houses. The coops are being set up on land strategically bought up while it was very cheap in the heart of impoverished Jackson, right next to affluent downtown – intentionally acting as a barrier to further gentrification.

Significantly, Jackson is another city where radical councillors have gained power – but Cooperation Jackson have drawn back from the electoral path, arguing that an assembly based movement on the ground needs to be greatly expanded to make sure that councillors carry out the wishes of the people. Without that, the danger with a limited budget is you end up implementing austerity – as we’ve seen happen in the UK.

We found many more inspiring struggles, from ex-coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky – one of the centres of historic militancy of the U.S. trade union movement – organising to end coal and move to renewable energy to bring back jobs, to teenage organizers in the Puerto Rican community in Brooklyn, New York fighting gentrification and organizing a grassroots just recovery from the devastation of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico, to First Nations activists all over the country, inspired by the epic battle to stop an oil pipeline at Standing Rock, now blocking new pipeline and fracking projects.

There are inspiring struggles happening here too. The battle to stop fracking is well known, but maybe less well known is the occupation at the BiFab yard in Scotland last year to successfully stop its closure. BiFab used to manufacture platforms for the offshore oil industry, but now makes platforms for wind turbines. Significantly, the workers said no retraining was required – it was exactly the same skills needed, showing how easily we could make a transition in a lot of areas. When the privatized company that ran the yard tried to shut it down and sell it off, the occupation forced the Scottish government to step in with a £15 million loan to keep it open. This has opened up a conversation on what could be achieved with a bit of planning. Research by Stephen Salter at Edinburgh University shows that if wind and tidal power were to be implemented on the north-east coast of Scotland, enough energy could be produced to power the whole of Europe and create thousands of jobs – so why are we allowing future projects to be at the mercy of the market?

We’re now organizing a UK tour to take films of all these struggles around the country, bringing people together to discuss and plan a just transition led by workers and communities in order that we benefit, not the bosses. We’ll be doing the tour in conjunction with the Million Climate Jobs campaign and have already got interest from UNITE Community branches, particularly in communities where industry has been devastated. Whatever you’re fighting for in your community, we’d love you to come along. We’ll be filming inspiring struggles and projects that are already underway as we go and show these at subsequent screenings – as well as sending the information back to activists in the USA so that we can start linking up and supporting each other’s struggles.

Film length: 32:06 In Jackson, Mississippi, Cooperation Jackson are building a solidarity economy, anchored by a network of cooperatives and worker-owned, democratically self-managed enterprises. This visionary project not only continues the historic Afro-American struggle for land, but shows how we can all make a just transition to a zero carbon, zero waste economy ourselves.

]]>The 1st Ecosocialist International: What it is and Why you should joinhttps://reelnews.co.uk/2018/07/23/all-reelnews-campaigns/environment/the-1st-ecosocialist-international-what-it-is-and-why-you-should-join/
Mon, 23 Jul 2018 11:10:54 +0000https://reelnews.co.uk/?p=4100[...]]]>

Film length: 12:23 The 1st Ecosocialist International is an initiative that started in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and is now spreading to North America. In Chavez’s last 5 year plan there was a goal to save the planet using an “ecosocialist production model”; activists inspired by this vision from around the world then used this initiative to call for the 1st Ecosocialist International. The 1st Ecosocialist International Convergence was held in Venezuela in November 2017, where a combined strategy and plan of action was developed. Cooperation Jackson, from Jackson Mississippi, was one of many organizations from around the world to participate in this convergence, based on their promotion and practice of regenerative ecosocialist models of production, distribution, consumption, and recycling that ground their notion of Just Transition and Ecological Regeneration. Cooperation Jackson hosted a convergence of North American ecosocialist activists in April to help build an ecosocialist international on the continent. This video explains why this development is so important – and why people from other continents should be getting involved too.